I'm so glad I was accepted for this title! The dynamic between our two main characters was super interesting and so was their character development, the plot was amazing, and the pacing was just right. I found myself not wanting to put this down and reading it in 3 days.

I was only a little confused by the timeline and POV character switches at first but it didn't stop me from being able to enjoy it. It's pretty easy to catch on quickly.

This is my first novel by Lutz, and as I am a sucker for murder mystery and thriller, I can safely say I will be picking up another one. I definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking to ease into the genre and likes high-energy books that can be finished in one sitting.

"The Accomplice" focuses on a deep and abiding friendship between Owen and Luna, who meet in college. It is the story of more than one death that they have singly and together experienced. And booze everywhere, in family homes, on their college campus, at the edge of a cliff. The story takes place in two timeframes, the early 2000s, when the bloom comes off Owen while they are still college students and fifteen years later when tragedy strikes again. It is a story of trust, suspicion, real betrayal, the pasts that haunt us, figuring out how to be one's authentic self and several mysteries: These mysteries include the not so likable elderly artist who could have been self-supporting but isn't; one dead mother; one dead father; one old death that led to guilt; one very new death that leads to confusion; a very unlikeable guy in prison; a couple of affairs; too much gossip; a neighbor who reminds one of Gladys Kravitz; and a brother and his dog. The cops are delightfully appealing characters as to every one of the deaths. Lutz is an adept sketch artist of character and one's imagination more than takes care of the stories she doesn't explicitly tell.I'd love to think I was one of the first to discover Lisa Lutz because when I found her Spellman series, I felt I alone knew about these books. I was so entertained and amused I never wanted them to end. "Heads You Lose" equally appealed to me. (It was not a mystery.) But, I took awhile to fully appreciate her later work. Oh, I liked the post-Spellman books. But I did not love them. I had type cast the author. Still, I bought each new book in hardcover the minute they came out, so my deep respect for the author stayed intact. My NetGalley ARC of "The Accomplice" started with a letter from a vice-president of Ballatine Books. She noted that "The Accomplice" refers back to a prior stand alone book of Lutz's, "The Passenger." Hmmm. "What was that one about?" I went to Goodreads and Amazon and Lutz's webpage. It was published in 2016. I devour books and it is hard to remember them all, but I recreated which Lutz this was and read good and bad reviews. Doing this changed how I read "The Accomplice". I say this for you who are disappointed that she did not continue the Spellman series or found her later books sparsely written, too shallow, lacking in clues, and rushed at the end. Go back and reread those books! I'm heading back to reread her work from the Spellmans onward. Because Lutz is an original writer and it is all there. And the writing is really sophisticated. It can be easy to write too much. Lutz's style is to write just enough. The rhythm is perfect. The humor less out there but woven throughout. Many reviewers note how quotable her books are. I just paid attention differently and it it true. She captures humanity in one line after another. Genius!

3.75

This book has a hook. I still can’t identify what it is, exactly, but once I started reading I wasn’t going to stop. Luna and Owen have a frankly strange relationship. They are very good friends who make Luna’s husband say that he and Owen’s wife Irene “had a similar sense of being the third wheel in our own marriages.” (p. 157 of the Advance Reader Copy)

Luna and Own have both been on the periphery of more deaths than is normal for a person. How many times is someone questioned by the police over the course of their life? For most people, the answer is zero. Not Luna and Owen. Even the cops think their relationship is not right.

So many secrets. And yet the author makes it believable that the secrets have been kept. I felt like Luna and Owen were two real people – not terribly likable, but well drawn. The plot isn’t spooky or tense, it’s just – interesting. Like listening to great gossip about someone you didn’t much care for in school. The pacing is superb. The narrative flips back and forth in time, and both timelines fascinated me equally.

There are a couple of mysteries, and I guessed about half of one and was completely caught off guard by the other. I congratulate any author who can put all the clues in place and still take me by surprise. I’ve read a lot of psychological thrillers in 2020 and 2021. I’ve enjoyed settling into someone’s fictional problems and forgetting about the real world’s problems for a while. The Accomplice is one of the best I’ve read in the last two years.

I read an advance reader copy of The Accomplice from Netgalley. It will be published in late January 2022.

Lisa Lutz! I really enjoy everything she writes! I was so excited to finally get this audiobook from the library after accidentally returning it the first time it arrived. Oops!

What do you really know about your family and close friends? What kind of secrets might they be keeping from you? Are any of them capable of serious crimes? Murder? Are you certain? What would happen if you asked them?

That’s my review.

Nice twists! I've read Lisa's books about the Spellmans, and while they are funny, this one is not. Terrific mystery!

Owen and Luna are best friends that manage to dissuade the age old theory that males and females cannot be friends without some romantic entanglements, but Owen and Luna are hardly just friends they are friends who will forsake all others including spouses. The book follows multiple POVs which change almost on a page to page basis rather than from chapter to chapter like most other books, it also moves between present day and the early 2000s, it covers the deaths of 2 women closely attached to Owen. This book engages you from the get go, its hard to put down, the characters are likable but I didn’t love Luna, she was a prickly character and it rubbed off onto the reader which I have to give the author credit for if that was her intention, but as I relished 3/4 of the book I was completely underwhelmed by the end. It puts me in mind of a cartoon where we are anticipating a monster to appear given the size of his shadow and the thump of his boots only for it to turn out to be a fluffy bunny, deeply disappointing. Given all this I’m not sure I really understand the title of this book. It’s a whodunit but after finishing it I’m not sure who is supposed to be The Accomplice.

This one didn’t quite draw me in. None of the characters seemed very interesting, realistic, or relatable. The ending kind of came from nowhere.